Tehidy Holiday Park

All the main highlights of Cornwall are easy to get to from here: Tehidy is between St Agnes and St Ives and half an hour’s drive will take you to famous Cornish landmarks Land’s End, The Lizard and the National Trust island of St Michael’s Mount, as well as the towns of Padstow and Penzance with its open-air Minack Theatre. The Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project are within 35 minutes’ drive. The closest beach to Tehidy is Portreath two miles away: there’s a valley walk from the park via the village following the stream through the bluebell woods – look out for kingfishers on the way. Gorgeous Portreath beach is popular with surfers and bodyboarders, with more surfing and watersports nearby at Godrevy, Porthtowan and the Cornish surfing mecca of Newquay; if you’ve yet to don a wetsuit, there are plenty of surf schools in the area to show you the ropes. The National Trust beach of Chapel Porth is just beyond Portreath, with a fisherman’s cottage selling fresh lobster and crab. Staying on land, golfers can hone their swing at one of four local golf courses, and there are miles of woodland walks at Tehidy Country Park. For cycling there’s the Camel Trail from Padstow to Bodmin half an hour from Tehidy, or the somewhat misnamed Great Flat Lode Mining Heritage Cycle Trail: not precisely flat but doable for families, as is the 11-mile Coast to Coast Mineral Tramways Trail from Portreath to Devoran. This area of Cornwall is full of mining heritage, with Tehidy in the middle of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site and the National Trust’s Cornish Mines and Engines site nearby; if this is a bit much for the kids, take them along to Heartlands, a newly opened attraction at Redruth with exhibitions, gardens, studios and nature trails. Other gardens can be had close to hand too: within half an hour of Tehidy there are the sub-tropical Trebah Gardens, the house and gardens of the Lanhydrock estate, and the National Garden Museum at Trevarno. For rainy days or grouchy kids, try Flambards Theme Park, the National Maritime Museum at Falmouth, the Iron Age hill village at Chysauster or the tropical pool at Newquay Water World.